Salt by Ava Max was playing again. The beat echoed off the ice and glass walls of the huge dome which separated the workshop from the arctic cold, thumping off the gears, gizmos, and red-capped mushrooms sprouting from old, gnarled tree trunks. Somewhere amidst the tangled mess of nature and contraptions, a distinctive booming voice was belting out the lyrics: “Got my thigh-highs on, feel like Wonder Woman.”
Boris smiled and shook his head. He’d always wondered what people would think if they knew Santa Claus preferred Billboard’s Top 100 to Christmas carols.
The ancient elf bopped and bounced to the music, his diminutive figure flitting here and there amongst the enchanted trees as he checked on his latest projects. Even with flashes of bright red in motion and a string of rich bass notes to follow, Boris had a hard time catching up to the little man.
“Mr. Claus,” Boris called. “Mr. Claus!”
“I’m all out of—oh! Boris!”
Claus skidded to a sudden stop, but his momentum carried him behind another tree and out of sight. It was only a few seconds before his mushroom cap hat belted in brown leather popped into view again.
“Boris! Back from your trip down south already?”
“Yes, sir.”
Boris’ long legs closed the distance between the two of them within a few paces. At a mere four feet tall, it was generally quicker to go to Claus than it was for Boris to wait for the elf to come to him. Generally. If Claus indulged in a Starbucks espresso, nobody could outpace him.
“Ah, I should probably take a break anyway before the missus comes fussing,” Claus said, sitting on a chair-like structure at the base of a tree. The gears didn’t look comfortable to Boris, but the elf’s contented sigh said he felt otherwise. “So, how did it go? Do we have a new enchantress on board for your next novel? You’re cutting the deadline awfully close, you know.”
Boris lowered himself to the ground, covered in squishy green moss with sparse tufts of grass here or there. “Lily didn’t give me an answer yet, but I’m hopeful. And I’ll have the manuscript for you tomorrow.”
“Good, good. Understand, I don’t mind you taking your time, but it’s the missus, you see. She hasn’t been so enthusiastic about an author since Jane Austen.” Claus lifted his tinted red glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “And you know what they say: ‘Happy wife, happy life.’”
“I’m honored to be in such fine literary company,” Boris said, smiling modestly. Claus may have been his publisher, but everybody knew Mrs. Claus held the purse strings, and right now, she wanted romance. Boris didn’t want to know what she was like in her Dante phase. “Oh, Pipaluk and Emma send their love.”
A wide smile split the curly white mass of mustache and beard hiding most of Claus’ face. “That’s right! They live next door to Lily, don’t they? Tell me, is Pip still blowing up his lab every other day? That Emma really is a saint for putting up with him.”
“Yes, he is, and yes, she certainly is.”
The resemblance was striking, Boris thought, recalling the images of Pipaluk and Emma as he looked at his employer. Pipaluk had the pointed ears typical of all Claus’ underlings, while the original elf had rounded ears that stuck out a bit from the side of his head. The same height, the same penchant for tinkering and experimenting—Pipaluk was more like Claus than most other elves, actually. The majority favored creating the old to inventing the new. And little Emma was rather similar to Mrs. Claus, too, although shorter. More motherly, perhaps. Quieter, more unassuming, but quick to adapt and quicker to take charge if necessary. All qualities necessary in the wife of a mad scientist. Or Santa Claus.
“We’ll have to invite them up for a visit,” Claus mused. “They have two kids now, don’t they? Bobby and Sue. Bobby wants art supplies this year, but Sue is undecided. Although they’ll both change their minds several times before Christmas comes, won’t they?” He let out his loud, characteristic laugh. “Kids their age change their minds all the way to Christmas Eve. Well, anyway, they can come with Lily when she signs the contracts.”
And that was the sticking point. Boris had already guessed Lily lived down south because she wanted her privacy, and with meddling relatives like her cousin Crystal, he could understand that. He now knew she wouldn’t come to the North Pole unless someone dragged her there kicking and screaming, and aside from being rude, that would be dangerous. She was far too powerful a snow witch to even consider it—unless one was prepared for her unchecked emotions to alter the world climate with sudden uncontrolled blizzards.
“I’m sorry, sir, but Lily made it very clear she wouldn’t come here to sign the contracts,” Boris said carefully. “And she hasn’t given me a solid ‘yes,’ either.”
Claus waved his hand dismissively. “George is already working on that. She’ll say ‘yes,’ and she’ll come. Now, let’s see that sample she gave you.”
Boris reached into his pocket and pulled out the ice bookmark, not bothering to ask how Claus knew about it. Often, it seemed like the old man knew everything. And he name-dropped people Boris didn’t know regularly, so the snow warlock had no trouble glossing over the mention of somebody named ‘George.’
“Here. Apparently, she made this while she was reading my last book. I added the anti-melt protection for the trip.”
Claus took the thin sheet of ice, humming thoughtfully as he inspected it. An etching of Frosty the snowman smiled up from the bookmark.
“Remove the anti-melt protection, will you?”
“Of course.” Boris took the bookmark back and pulled the extra coating of chill into his fingers with little effort. To a non-magician, it probably looked amazing, but it barely put a few ice crystals back into his bloodstream. Now, Lily—she could work some amazing magic. The snow globe encasing her house, for example. She’d constructed the entire thing out of conjured ice in a single night, and the magic had still been active when Boris arrived. A lesser magician would have failed miserably. And died during the attempt.
“Thank you. Now, come with me.” Claus leaped to his feet and trotted away, and Boris followed, familiar with the whims of his publisher. They left the forest for a clearing where the grass grew thick and the moss became sparse, and it was here that Claus gestured for Boris to work his magic again. “Go ahead and trigger it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Triggering another person’s magic could be tricky, but Lily’s magic had a vibrant strength that made it easy to locate amidst the engraving in the ice. Boris had simply to find the lock and turn the key. Then, the magic would be free to burst forth and display its true form.
The lock was Frosty’s smile.
A single ice crystal dropped from Boris’ finger, and the snowman’s smile widened. He waved a greeting with one stick arm and rotated his pipe to the other side of his mouth, and then he collected himself and leaped out of the bookmark and into reality. Three balls of snow, the largest at the bottom, the smallest at the top; pieces of coal curved up into a smile that almost reached his coal eyes; a button nose; the simple wooden pipe, and the all-important black silk top hat. Just like the Rankin/Bass movie.
The blizzard, however, was not like the movie.
It whipped the still, quiet air into a swirling, howling blur of white, dropping the climate-controlled dome to subzero temperatures within seconds. Being a snow warlock, it didn’t bother Boris, and although he could barely make out Claus standing next to him amidst the driving snow, the glimpses he got showed the elf was calm, hands clasped behind his back.
And then it was over, and the music had changed.
A thick blanket of white covered the clearing, and before them stood an arena-sized stage, complete with runway and lights. Frosty stood on the stage now, and suddenly, a breathy baritone voice began singing words Boris didn’t understand, and six more snowmen fanned out from behind Frosty, creating an effect like a stop-motion film of a single person’s movements. More voices joined the chorus, and the rock beat and guitars hit hard as the seven snowmen spun and danced across the stage, taking positions Boris would never have thought possible for snowmen.
“What is this?” he asked incredulously.
“Fake Love by BTS,” Claus replied, wearing a very pleased smile. “Lily has been ARMY since witch’s school.” He looked up at Boris and clarified, “BTS is a famous K-pop group. Really, you should have heard of them by now. ARMY is what they call their fans.”
Boris nodded dumbly as the lights flashed brilliant colors across the dancing, singing snowmen. “How are the lights working without electricity?”
“Oh, some trick of ice lenses positioned just right to reflect and refract the natural light, I expect. She’s a very talented girl. Doesn’t have to know how things work to envision what she wants, and the magic does the rest. Better stop the show before my trees start complaining.”
“Ah—oh, yes.”
Isolating the lock, Frosty’s smile, was significantly harder when six nearly identical snowmen surrounded his target, all of whom gyrated madly across the stage and spread across the runway to amp up the absent audience, but Boris finally managed it. The scene disappeared in a much less spectacular form than it appeared. In the blink of an eye, Frosty, the other snowmen, the stage, and the snow were gone, and the bookmark was static, a simple sheet of ice with an unassuming etching of a snowman again.145Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh0IbWM1AD7
然後按「加至主畫面」